From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from smtp.kernel.org (aws-us-west-2-korg-mail-1.web.codeaurora.org [10.30.226.201]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id D2E9525C818; Tue, 6 Jan 2026 17:41:56 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1767721316; cv=none; b=LTF+7D2urSyPEsb27w7VxjoHgxzsssr3Vzu6jjMRx1MsMDKjm/C5q8ivvTcC/FyADo5sgr0TkQdSQORjnTOlfJJ5f8f1T+z7tQjcqYD7bWRoZ/yuNAeoa7vZmnnX0ztstzcHdEJYis80NwGKgXtmn3meBwGELnPyDgg4GrVtOmk= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1767721316; c=relaxed/simple; bh=x9GaP8BJyWM27x/NTOFJ8JE0kMcsq7xB0sPlWRcMGLE=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:Message-ID:In-Reply-To:References: MIME-Version; b=rTfO7CdFFb+EbYXrorA2cv7HxOI59DpITwe9CGQS4eoKKh13kpWmUzBTp0vbmUouAqKebpgvtajYhY8HbtT+CCMuigFi0kgit3Y9oUnCaoUc679VS9nWRZ/NKbvRI0bMNxlISkuzeJe/2Ri2rMZ5NhnTNI31Zlqg+KHiyNeWcGk= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=linuxfoundation.org header.i=@linuxfoundation.org header.b=NCsEIb9/; arc=none smtp.client-ip=10.30.226.201 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=linuxfoundation.org header.i=@linuxfoundation.org header.b="NCsEIb9/" Received: by smtp.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 548B3C116C6; Tue, 6 Jan 2026 17:41:56 +0000 (UTC) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/simple; d=linuxfoundation.org; s=korg; t=1767721316; bh=x9GaP8BJyWM27x/NTOFJ8JE0kMcsq7xB0sPlWRcMGLE=; h=From:To:Cc:Subject:Date:In-Reply-To:References:From; b=NCsEIb9/AgwX0izl7jSwwfajM13ZOhQjmz4xJusxtFSu1GPmv0d9CsVi7ixGXx4zZ 0f0QPDkDMJv6K/HxlsfPTubDi4IxMqdIR78Q2lsqyouPdNtMMlJmxeo5LqQbfDOCBZ UCIilx+55jjwk+9VnXaQgTDmOxod+Qej4ziU0QfI= From: Greg Kroah-Hartman To: stable@vger.kernel.org Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman , patches@lists.linux.dev, xu xin , Stefan Roesch , David Hildenbrand , Jinjiang Tu , Wang Yaxin , Yang Yang , Andrew Morton , Sasha Levin Subject: [PATCH 6.12 501/567] mm/ksm: fix exec/fork inheritance support for prctl Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2026 18:04:43 +0100 Message-ID: <20260106170509.901737096@linuxfoundation.org> X-Mailer: git-send-email 2.52.0 In-Reply-To: <20260106170451.332875001@linuxfoundation.org> References: <20260106170451.332875001@linuxfoundation.org> User-Agent: quilt/0.69 X-stable: review X-Patchwork-Hint: ignore Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: stable@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit 6.12-stable review patch. If anyone has any objections, please let me know. ------------------ From: xu xin [ Upstream commit 590c03ca6a3fbb114396673314e2aa483839608b ] Patch series "ksm: fix exec/fork inheritance", v2. This series fixes exec/fork inheritance. See the detailed description of the issue below. This patch (of 2): Background ========== commit d7597f59d1d33 ("mm: add new api to enable ksm per process") introduced MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY for mm->flags, and allowed user to set it by prctl() so that the process's VMAs are forcibly scanned by ksmd. Subsequently, the 3c6f33b7273a ("mm/ksm: support fork/exec for prctl") supported inheriting the MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY flag when a task calls execve(). Finally, commit 3a9e567ca45fb ("mm/ksm: fix ksm exec support for prctl") fixed the issue that ksmd doesn't scan the mm_struct with MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY by adding the mm_slot to ksm_mm_head in __bprm_mm_init(). Problem ======= In some extreme scenarios, however, this inheritance of MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY during exec/fork can fail. For example, when the scanning frequency of ksmd is tuned extremely high, a process carrying MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY may still fail to pass it to the newly exec'd process. This happens because ksm_execve() is executed too early in the do_execve flow (prematurely adding the new mm_struct to the ksm_mm_slot list). As a result, before do_execve completes, ksmd may have already performed a scan and found that this new mm_struct has no VM_MERGEABLE VMAs, thus clearing its MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY flag. Consequently, when the new program executes, the flag MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY inheritance missed. Root reason =========== commit d7597f59d1d33 ("mm: add new api to enable ksm per process") clear the flag MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY when ksmd found no VM_MERGEABLE VMAs. Solution ======== Firstly, Don't clear MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY when ksmd found no VM_MERGEABLE VMAs, because perhaps their mm_struct has just been added to ksm_mm_slot list, and its process has not yet officially started running or has not yet performed mmap/brk to allocate anonymous VMAS. Secondly, recheck MMF_VM_MERGEABLE again if a process takes MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY, and create a mm_slot and join it into ksm_scan_list again. Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20251007182504440BJgK8VXRHh8TD7IGSUIY4@zte.com.cn Link: https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20251007182821572h_SoFqYZXEP1mvWI4n9VL@zte.com.cn Fixes: 3c6f33b7273a ("mm/ksm: support fork/exec for prctl") Fixes: d7597f59d1d3 ("mm: add new api to enable ksm per process") Signed-off-by: xu xin Cc: Stefan Roesch Cc: David Hildenbrand Cc: Jinjiang Tu Cc: Wang Yaxin Cc: Yang Yang Cc: Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton [ changed mm_flags_test() and mm_flags_clear() calls to test_bit() and clear_bit() ] Signed-off-by: Sasha Levin Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman --- mm/ksm.c | 18 ++++++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) --- a/mm/ksm.c +++ b/mm/ksm.c @@ -2704,8 +2704,14 @@ no_vmas: spin_unlock(&ksm_mmlist_lock); mm_slot_free(mm_slot_cache, mm_slot); + /* + * Only clear MMF_VM_MERGEABLE. We must not clear + * MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY, because for those MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY process, + * perhaps their mm_struct has just been added to ksm_mm_slot + * list, and its process has not yet officially started running + * or has not yet performed mmap/brk to allocate anonymous VMAS. + */ clear_bit(MMF_VM_MERGEABLE, &mm->flags); - clear_bit(MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY, &mm->flags); mmap_read_unlock(mm); mmdrop(mm); } else { @@ -2820,8 +2826,16 @@ void ksm_add_vma(struct vm_area_struct * { struct mm_struct *mm = vma->vm_mm; - if (test_bit(MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY, &mm->flags)) + if (test_bit(MMF_VM_MERGE_ANY, &mm->flags)) { __ksm_add_vma(vma); + /* + * Generally, the flags here always include MMF_VM_MERGEABLE. + * However, in rare cases, this flag may be cleared by ksmd who + * scans a cycle without finding any mergeable vma. + */ + if (unlikely(!test_bit(MMF_VM_MERGEABLE, &mm->flags))) + __ksm_enter(mm); + } } static void ksm_add_vmas(struct mm_struct *mm)